


Defenders Of Earth

by impossiblewolfgirl



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Torchwood, Angst, Eventual Fluff, Gen, TenRose - Freeform, TenToo - Freeform, Torchwood - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblewolfgirl/pseuds/impossiblewolfgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened on the beach after the Doctor and Donna left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defenders Of Earth

He holds her hand as the Tardis fades away. Rose stares at it and tries to work through the mess of things buzzing in her head. Her lips are still burning from that kiss, but her heart has been utterly shattered by the sound of the TARDIS as it leaves.

She had imagined a thousand outcomes to finding the Doctor, but this had never been one of them. Left back in Pete’s world, on that same damned beach, clutching onto a man that was both completely her Doctor and not at the same time. 

Her mind simply blanks as she stares at the square imprint in the sand. He squeezes her hand, but her hand is limp within his. Jackie is in the background, and she’s waiting for some reaction from Rose. So is the human Doctor next to her.

“Rose—“ He starts to say something, but his own words must be as lost as Rose’s. She looks up at him, and his eyes are the same. They are dark brown and filled with the galaxies, and that helps re-center her.

She should leave. That would be the healthiest thing to do. The Doctor has just given her the largest gift that he possibly could, and she should be appreciative. She should be excited for the life that is about to unfold before her.

Instead, she feels the contents of her stomach crawling up the back of her throat. She has him. But the Doctor’s out there still, traveling the vast expanse of the universe, and he does not have her.

Her poor Doctor.

Jackie reads the long silence and she jumps in to fix it. “Let’s head home then, shall we? No use hanging ‘round here any longer.” Then, when Rose doesn’t move—“Rose?”

“Yeah. You two go on. I just need a—a moment or two.” She manages to keep the tears out of her voice. The Doctor looks like he wants to protest, but Jackie steps forward and   
takes his arm.

“Come on then, Love. Let’s see if we can find a taxi somewhere. I don’t fancy a walk back home. We’ll wait up for you, Rose.”

“Yeah.” Rose repeats softly, letting the Doctor’s hand slip away from hers. She doesn’t turn to watch them walk off.

There are footprints in the sand—his footprints. It’s more than he left last time, but it’s not enough. Footprints will never be enough, and she wonders if a Doctor with one heart will be, either. Is his metacrisis him, really? The kiss felt real. That heartbeat felt real. But she’s so afraid. And the fear is worse than anything she has faced before, from watching the end of the Earth to reaching out for that lever to open the rift, stretching as far as she could and falling short.

This is the end—really and truly. It was written in the real Doctor’s eyes, and if it had been up to Rose, she would never have turned the page. She would have frozen time on that beach and simply looked back and forth, from human to timelord, and she would refuse to make up her mind.

“Why did you do that?” She asks the footprints as tears let loose and slide down her face. “You didn’t give me long enough to make my choice. I wasn’t going to leave you.”

Rose hasn’t even realized that until after she says it, and she claps a hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs once it has been said.

She had promised him that she would not leave. And she had meant it with all her heart. They were going to travel together forever. She would cheat death somehow, through some futuristic healthcare perhaps, and they would go together. Throughout time, throughout regenerations. She would be there.

Did he remember those words as he closed the TARDIS door? Did her promise of forever echo in his ears as he flipped the TARDIS controls and left?

If it didn’t, then she didn’t know the Doctor as well as she thought.

She stands on the beach and the time trickles past, but for once it doesn’t matter.

That’s how she is when the Doctor returns.

His hand on her shoulder makes her jump. More time than she thought must have passed.

When she turns to look at him, tears streaked and drying down her red cheeks, he pulls her into a hug.

There are no words said, but she can feel the Doctor—her Doctor—in the embrace.

 

The taxi ride is cramped, and the taxi smells like old sweat. Rose hates every bump and turn.

They stop in an old motel—Bad Wolf Bay is a long way from the Tyler household. Jackie pays, and Rose goes straight to the room. The Doctor follows her, but she’s ignoring him. She slips the room key in, but the light flashes red. She jams it in with more force, with the same result. She does it a half dozen more times, growing more frantic with every try, when he stops her with a gentle hand and pries the key from her fingers.

It only takes him one try, and Rose would be annoyed, but she’s just so tired. All the past days with so little sleep had taken a toll. She just hadn’t been able to, not when the Doctor was so close.

Now, as she glances back over her shoulder at the Doctor, all she can think is that it isn’t him. That he’s out there somewhere, lonely, and every time she sees this face, she’s going to think of that.

How can she love a face that makes her so guilty?

She flops down in one of the beds, not telling the Doctor what to do. He hovers in the middle of the room uncertainly, and Rose leaves him to do that. There isn’t enough energy to get under the covers, so she simply closes her eyes and wishes away consciousness.  
After a while, gentle hands place a blanket over top of her. She pretends to have already fallen asleep.

Jackie isn’t exactly stealthy when she comes in.

“Already asleep? Poor dear.” There’s a loud groaning noise as she sinks down onto the bed. “Sorry love, but I think you’ll be sleeping on that chair.”

There is a moment of silence, then the Doctor clears his throat.

“Right, ‘course.”

He was thinking about all the times back in the TARDIS when they would curl up in one bed and the stars would project on the ceiling, and then he would show off by naming all the stars and constellations and planets.

No, not him. The Doctor. He’s—

Rose isn’t sure what he is. A human Timelord, how could that work?

“She’s had a rough day. She’ll come around.” Jackie says. She’s throwing back the covers, Rose can hear them rasping against each other as she climbs in. “Should’ve brought an extra pair of clothes or two.” She states glumly. “Fancy a bit of telly?”

There’s silence, so he’s probably shrugging. The television clicks on with a blast of sound, which Jackie lowers hurriedly.

Rose just wants to sleep. Maybe she can find the Doctor in her dreams, like she did so long ago, and apologize to him. Promise him that she’ll find a way back. Aren’t the dimension cannon plans back at Torchwood? Sure, she’d be ripping the fabric of the universe apart, but in such a situation—who could blame her?

“She already looks at me differently. Is it because of the daleks?” The Doctor’s voice interrupts her thoughts. “I only did what I thought had to be done.”

That was right. He’d committed a genocide—how Doctor-ish was that? Rose’s thoughts were growing sluggish. The Doctor though… the Doctor wouldn’t have done that.

The Doctor wouldn’t have told her he loved her on the beach, either, though. He wouldn’t have let her kiss him like that. They’d always danced around intimacy. There was touching, and smiles, even the occasional innuendo. Rose had tried going farther, but it hadn’t ever quite caught. He was a hero, and being with human girls didn’t fit the hero in his head. The hero in his head didn’t need that sort of intimacy.

It was that thought that accompanied Rose the rest of the way to sleep. She both hated and loved the traitorous thought that was going against everything else. She wants to be angry and upset about everything. It’s only right, because the Doctor left her, and she let him leave her, and it’s all a mess.


End file.
